13 unclaimed bodies in Kitwe Teaching Hospital mortuary

SANFROSSA MANYINDA writes KITWE Teaching Hospital (KTH) has 13 unclaimed bodies in the mortuary and has appealed to members of the public who maybe missing their relatives to check at the medical institution. According to the local government act cap 281 sec 61 function 41 of laws of Zambia, unclaimed bodies qualify to be disposed of by the council’s public health department. A body is declared unclaimed after laying in a mortuary for 90 days without anyone claiming it. KTH Public Relations Officer, Phoebe Chileya, confirmed to The Sun that the bodies had been laying in the hospital mortuary for some time now without any identification. “We have been issuing notices of identification to members of the general public but no one has so far come to identify any of them. And looking at the period they have been in the mortuary they qualify to be disposed of,” she said. Ms Chileya said that among the 13 bodies, of which most of them were in a decomposed state, was one female. She said that the disposing of the unclaimed bodies would help decongest the mortuary and help personnel maintain hygiene. “We therefore advise members of the public to always rush to the hospital whenever they miss their relatives to try and identify them so that they can be given proper burials,” Ms Chileya said. The Sun